sister sonic

I used to be big on Retronauts, one of my favorite podcasts that I listened to at every release up until it’s host Jeremy Parish lost interest and eventually wound up as Editor in Chief of 1UP.com. Then writer Bob Mackey would pick the ball back up and relaunch the show as a live podcast to keep the show going despite the hardships that had hit 1UP in recent times. Admittably I don’t listen to it as often, change does become difficult to swallow sometimes, but every now and then comes an episode that strikes all the right chords of what I used to love on Retronauts: Silly non sequiturs overshadowed by rare facts and industry insight, along with uncovering childhood memories of yore, no matter how time-tested or scathing as they may have been.

This particular episode rings true for sure as Retronauts Live, in it’s new iteration, has a bigger emphasis on the hosts talking directly to the developers and figure heads of the industry, with the most recent episode featuring Victor Ireland, co-founder of Working Designs, a company driven to bringing niche Japanese titles to western markets adapted for their tastes and boasting a high quality standard for the games as proudly as possible. While the episode does cover topics regarding the Playstation, there’s still plenty of talk of Vic’s company dealing with Sega, including stories on Vay for Sega CD, the dire development on the last Sega Saturn game in the US, Magic Knight Rayearth, and extensive coverage on the Lunar series. Not to mention Working Design’s position during the brief decision from Sega of America to transform Popful Mailfor Sega CD into Sister Sonic. Yes! The Hedgehog! Imagine playing a Falcom game designed around an as-then unnamed female relative, (Not Sonia the Hedgehog,) of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Check out the podcast here complete with shownotes. If you aren’t up for people talking about old video games, now’s a good time as any to shoehorn the opening theme to the Sega CD version of Lunar – The Silver Star (In English!) as they sure don’t make any upbeat video game music like this anymore. Or click here if you prefer it in Japanese…